International Business & Development Studies Courses

[Very important] Not all students will be qualified to enrol in this course because of the way it is placed in the BD program structure. Any student who intends to enrol in this course must consult with the instructor prior to their enrolment.
This course is one of two quantitative methods courses for students in the BD program in the GPGS. It is targeted to students who have inadequate background in economics/mathematics. The objective of this course is to ensure that all students have encountered the material that is assumed knowledge for subsequent economics courses in the BD program.

The course first introduces the general concept of strategy and why companies need to apply them. Implementation of strategy and its tools will be discussed. The course will mainly discuss business and corporate strategies. The questions discussed will be: How can corporations become and stay competitive? What decisions need to be made to do so?

International Information Systems are enhancing the pace of development and globalization. Information systems have been vital for any organization but with the expansion of Internet, Information Systems have extended their reach internationally to become huge inter-organizational systems that have become vital for the functioning of today’s modern society as well.
After learning the components that comprise an Information System and various applications, students would be exposed to the managerial challenges with these systems and also the researches happening in this area through the discussions/presentations of research papers.

This course develops the student's understanding of the theory and practice of financial accounting. The accounting measurements and reporting practices will be presented with a primary focus on International Financial Reporting Standards(IFRS) with some reference to the Japanese accounting standards.

This course provides a foundation for understanding and managing in a global multicultural environment and workplace. Student will develop an understanding of the similarities and difference in management practice and environment in different national, cultural and regional settings. In this connection, the course is divided into three components:
Re-Orienting Asian Management
Who are the major Asian companies? How do they manage their business?  convergence and divergence debates (functional equivalents)
Comparative Management
What are the similarities and differences in Asian management styles? What are its sources/influences?  culture and institutions debates
Managing Across Borders
How do Asian companies build value and improve performance throughout its value chain? What challenges do they face in moving from domestic to international operations?  functional issues
Throughout the course, the impact of culture and institutions will be examined on both the micro and macro-organizational issues, including employee motivation, leadership, communication, negotiation, decision making, as well as firm strategies, systems, and multinational teams.

The aim of this course is to provide students with knowledge of international financial management. Topics covered include net present value, the capital asset pricing model, cost of capital, international investments, and international corporate finance. There will be computer exercises with financial data. Students are required to apply these concepts to real-world situations in the international context through quantitative analysis or case studies.

Statistical skills are essential in business and economics. This course is concerned with quantitative data analysis using statistical methods. Topics such as descriptive statistics, probability, and sampling will be reviewed, and we will also cover statistic methods that are often used in business and economics. Hypothesis testing, regression analysis, analysis of variance, and analysis of categorical data will be covered (and more if time permits). The emphasis will be on practical application, and we will make extensive use of computer software.

This course is designed to provide you with a framework within which international marketing operations can be analyzed, understood, and undertaken. We will recognize in this course that most business issues addressed in the cross-cultural context are somewhat similar to those firms implicitly or explicitly face in their domestic operations.
The main differences between domestic and cross-cultural/multinational operations are usually matters of degree, variation, and complexity of controllable (e.g., marketing mix elements, management issues) and uncontrollable forces (i.e., various aspects of the national and socio-cultural environments). Given the intense nature of this class, the emphasis is on understanding diverse cultural, social and economic contexts
in which consumption practices occur, and on translating this knowledge into actionable marketing strategies and practices.

The course will concentrate on issues of growth and development for a variety of world economies. The issues covered will include topics such as scarcity of resources, interaction between market and government control, role of technology and human capital, institutions, globalization, health, education, infrastructure and inequality and poverty. Specific tools include the measurement of economic growth and standards of living, conduct of macroeconomic policy, models of international trade, poverty alleviation policies, and instruments of global capital markets.

*************** Not offered in 2018 ****************
This course is designed to provide students with the basic theories of international finance with an emphasis on macroeconomic perspectives.
The course begins by examining the balance of payments to understand how different international transactions are measured. Next, we study how exchange rates are determined and how they interact with various macroeconomic variables in the short run and the long run. The roles of monetary and fiscal policies under different exchange rate regimes are also discussed. In the latter half of the semester, students will learn various recent policy debates, such as optimum currency areas and currency crises.